Heroines in Historical Fiction

"This sweeping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century. From the start, Violeta's life is marked by extraordinary events and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century. Violeta tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves...

After Paul D. finds his old slave friend Sethe in Ohio and moves in with her and her daughter Denver, a strange girl comes along by the name of "Beloved." Sethe and Denver take her in and then strange things begin to happen. Set in rural Ohio several years after the Civil War, this profoundly affecting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath is Toni Morrison's greatest novel, a dazzling achievement, and the most spellbinding reading experience of the...

Since childhood, Anita Hemmings has longed to attend the country's most exclusive school for women, Vassar College. Now, a bright, beautiful senior in the class of 1897, she is hiding a secret that would have banned her from admission: Anita is the only African-American student ever to attend Vassar. With her olive complexion and dark hair, this daughter of a janitor and descendant of slaves has successfully passed as white, but now finds herself...

Seduced by her employer's son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to "the land beyond the seas," Van Diemen's Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long...

After an epic snow storm ravages the city of Albany, Dr. Mary Sutter, a former Civil War surgeon, begins a search for two little girls, the daughters of close friends killed by the storm who have vanished without a trace. Mary's mother and niece Elizabeth, who has been studying violin in Paris, return to Albany upon learning of the girls' disappearance--but Elizabeth has another reason for wanting to come home, one she is not willing to reveal. Despite...

"London, 1947: Besieged by the harshest winter in living memory, burdened by onerous shortages and rationing, the people of postwar Britain are enduring lives of quiet desperation in spite of their nation's recent victory. Among them are Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin, embroiderers in the famed Mayfair fashion house of Norman Hartnell. Together they forge an unlikely friendship, but their bond, along with their nascent hopes for a brighter future, are...

"This indelible romance begins with a daring conceit--that the author's grandfather may have had an affair with Lucille Ball. Strauss offers a fresh view of a celebrity America loved more than any other. Lucille Ball--the most powerful woman in the history of Hollywood--starred in America's first big-time interracial marriage. She owned more movie sets than did any movie studio. And she more or less single-handedly created the modern tv business....

"For fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Women in the Castle comes a riveting literary novel that is at once an epic love story and a heart-pounding journey across WWI-era Russia, about an ambitious young doctor and her scientist brother in a race against Einstein to solve one of the greatest mysteries of the universe"--

Determined to conquer the Riemann hypothesis despite cultural discrimination against women intellectuals, a genius mathematician uncovers a mysterious theorem's unexpected World War II link to her family.

"Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonial, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising half-caste children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the Empire. Her sister, Esi, will be captured in a raid...